Since 2009, Trees for Neighborhoods has helped Seattle residents plant over 8,300 trees in their yards and along the street. That’s 8,300 more trees working to clean our air and water, make our streets more walkable, and our neighborhoods healthier! See where the trees are planted.

Trolls Knoll Work Party Saturday, September 8 from 9am – 12pm At Fremont Troll (N 36th St under Aurora Ave N) [map]RSVP here or email TreeAmbassador@seattle.gov Help the Fremont Troll’s Forest! Join neighbors for a day of environmental restoration at an iconic Seattle site! No experience necessary. Tools, gloves, snacks, and instruction are provided. Please dress for the weather and wear close-toed shoes

SDOT Tree Planting Community Meetings The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is holding a series of meetings this summer to gather feedback and suggestions on their planting work . SDOT will be planting trees along SDOT maintained arterials in the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019. Questions? Contact Sherry Graham at 206-615-1569 or sherry.graham@seattle.gov Meeting schedule:

Should We Underground Power Lines? A frequent question to Seattle City Light goes something like this: Why can’t they put powerlines underground instead of overhead so that they do not need to prune trees away from lines? On the surface, this seems like a great idea. The details of making it happen, however, paint a different story.

Typical trenches required for underground power lines are 3 feet wide by 3 feet deep. Removing this much soil can significantly harm trees’ roots, especially big old trees that have large structural roots. The top 18” of soil contains most of a tree’s important feeder roots. These roots allow trees to uptake water, gather nutrients, and get oxygen. Trenching and removing these roots may shorten trees’ lives. Also, to accommodate some of the underground infrastructure, like vault boxes, required for underground power some trees would need to be removed completely. And if power lines were moved underground, finding power outages would take more time and cost significantly more. Overall, undergrounding power lines is not a winning formula for trees. More information about the undergrounding of power lines and associated cost can be found here .